The New DSM

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i suppose so, but i should make it clear that i can only offer observations from what i've seen.

the problem with both the groups seemed to be the level of emotion. with the aspies and the HFAs the HFAs would get frustrated about the aspies constantly bringing up issues of social rejection. the HFAs can not grasp the aspies disappointment over the rejection from their peers as they mostly do not care either way. they get frustrated at this topic being raised over and over, and they actually can get a bit nasty towards the aspies, especially if the aspie gets overly emotional.

aspies really care about social acceptance, it makes them feel things, usually bad things, that they can not intergrate. the HFAs seem to know they themselves are like this too, but unlike the aspies, there is no feeling attached to it.

same thing with the aspie and self-diagnosed aspie groups. the aspies would get frustrated with the self-diagnosed aspies getting overly emotional about being hard done by and what not.

so it just seems to me that the level of emotion is the main difference between all three groups.

the HFAs tend to come to group more to discuss life, interests, occasionally a problem. but usually if someone has a problem they want to talk about they will bring it up one on one with the leader rather than discuss it as a group. our group is more of a social club environment and focused on interaction and a little bit of social skill development, but through a natural process, it's not actively pursued. i mean i know for a fact some of the HFA kids only come because we have fantastic computers with highspeed internet. we play games, do homework (the younger members). nobody sits in a circle, except at the start and finish. very rarely does anybody get upset or angry or fight. occasionally lower functioning individuals participate in this group.

the aspie group is very focused on problem solving and developing life skills and social skills. people do sit in a circle, they bring up individual problems, others relate, they work through and discuss a solution. emotion level is usually low and everyone in the group seems very matter-of-fact. occasionally an aspie will have had a bad day and will become distressed and become emotional, there is always a very interesting split of aspies who comfort the person and those who obviously avoid taking notice of the upset persons state.

the self-diagnosed aspie group is very emotional. they also sit in a circle. the group has two supervisors (the others only have one). the members are usually a bit older. the group seems to focus around people telling their stories about growing up and finding out about aspergers. there are alot of tears in this group and they often feel hard done by. there are two supervisors because there is a tendency for heated arguments to break out. self-diagnosed aspies sometimes seem to need to top one another on how hard they have had it, it is odd to me because the aspie group works together with problems, but this group always butts heads. this group is not really for people who want to make a change, they are beyond that, but who are looking to be heard and accepted after years of being misunderstood and pushed away. the supervisors of the group are trained trauma councilors.

so i suppose i think it has alot to do with level of emotion, it's what defined the groups anyway.

There is a lot of misinformation being spread here. The poster involved reminds me of someone ...

Of course. Understood.



Nods. That puts me more into the HFA group, though I am 37, and should, by life experience, fit the self diagnosed aspie group. Not that I have had a particularly difficult life.

As an aside, I recently read "The curious incident of the dog in the night-time", and while I greatly enjoyed it, by the end I thought the protagonist was overly prone to histronics. But I guess that happens with fictional entities!

I agree with this line. I guess it was Uta Frith in one of her books who proposed the hypothesis that AS and autism shared basicaly the same problems/impairments but people with AS had better adaptation skills than people with autism. Lack of adaptation skills in people with autism would make them more aloft cause they could not stand social relationships, while people with AS would do better at relationships with other people.

That's problem with absolutes - by your definitions I'm HFA.



I have strong emotions, I just don't care about the topics you mentioned, and never have for the 30 years of my life I remember.



Shivers... That sounds absolutely ghastly.

My personal idea(and its just an idea) is that neurotypical was a specialist brain that became prevalent and all pervasive. Some where back in antiquity... just as tool use florished, so did emotive bonding. Modern day aspies are a recombination of various atavistic traits. In the case of extreme LFA, as you said, the direction development takes is far too insular for the person to be a contributing member of society.

Which is why you can have a pair of twins, one will be an aspie, the other NT. Or perhaps one will be an aspie and one is LFA.

Oh, no, that's going too far--LFAs definitely do contribute. They might not be independent as adults (this is the most common definition of LFA), but that doesn't translate to "no contribution to society". Especially if said LFA is part of a family or in an assisted living situation that places them in the community. I guess you could argue that if you stick them in a group home/nursing home/whatever and don't let them out, you force them not to contribute; but that's not a problem intrinsic to the autie themselves.

Asperger's groups definitely get group dynamics. If a group starts out with a small number of people who like to complain about social rejection, then they will tend to acquire new members who also like to complain about social rejection. If they start out with a small number of people who want to talk about interests and daily life, then they keep new members who also want to discuss those things.

It doesn't take NT mind-reading to form a group that is naturally exclusive of those with traits that aren't exactly like its members. It just naturally happens. People who like discussing what the group is discussing will naturally come back; those with different interests won't. Groups that spend time together naturally develop habits of their own. Integrate them, and those groups will stay distinct because of the habits they've developed and the topics they tend to discuss. It needn't be Aspie and HFA. It could be Wrong Planet and AFF...

Incidentally, here's another Aspie who doesn't care about rejection and would prefer not to spend time complaining about it--and I wasn't diagnosed until I was twentyish. Maybe many Aspies tend to focus on social rejection, but I'm not one of them and I'm not the only one who doesn't.

Yes you are right. I took that a little far and didnt consider some things. They definitely contribute.

i offered you nothing absolute and certainly no definitions. my post was an observation on a few very specific groups of people on the spectrum with in a very specific setting, i thought i made that pretty clear. it should not be used to define yourself as anything, especially not where you are on the spectrum. you need not compare yourself to everything and everyone.

Me too. That was the main reason I stopped going to church. I just can't stand having to give a report on what I have done every week and have everyone saying "hallelujah" or "praise lord" to me after every sentence.

If your observation is valid, it will put me in the hfa group. Not that I'm complaining, I guess I've just got used to the term asperger and found that a little bit new to me.

May I suggest that your sample is slightly biased because people in your groups are those that are willing/hoping to share in the first place? They may have different expectations of the form of sharing but they all have the desire to discuss their experiences.
May be those hfa kids who are there just to play are the exceptions. But I think I'm closer to their mindset than the other groups too. This may actually mean I'm closer to hfa, but I'm inclined to think your observation have more to do with personalities. I think Callista's idea of group dynamic is part of the reason too.

Take a person prone to fixation and with a particular need for clarity and certainty. Add an issue that has pervasively effected them throughout their life and which they have discovered but cannot confirm, and which therefore appears to be but cannot be confirmed to be at the heart of repeated failings and excessively negative experiences.

Take a group of such people and assort them together. What would you predict this group would fixate on?

Take a group who have never experienced this uncertainty or no longer do; add impairments in empathy and a lack of patience with matters outside their own preoccupations. What would you predict their response to the other group’s fixated behavior might be?

I know I fixated on these issues before I got diagnostic clarity, and that they bother me much less, and are much less interesting to me since I got diagnostic clarity. It’s no secret that people with AS can fixate on an issue until they get clarity, nor that their fixated behaviors can be tiresome to anyone who does not share their preoccupation.

you do not need to suggest it, that is what i was trying to say in my post above yours (perhaps you did not see it). my observations aren't so much 'biased' (i don't have any sort of preference) as it is situation-specific. it is not an observation on people on the spectrum, it is an observation of the dynamic of the people in the groups. i do not think it is even close to a good way to see where you sit on the spectrum, especially because, with the exception of the hfa group, the members of the aspie groups have very different parts of their personalities bought out within the group setting from when when you talk to them one on one. within the group, the shyest aspie can become a raging bull if certain triggers are set off, and vice versa ,some of the more outgoing individuals freeze up and become almost mute in the group setting.

it totally depends on the individual personalities to some degree. having said that, it does seem that there is some consistency to what will happen within a group, that how we came to realise that we needed to separate certain groups. but we always know that within the aspie group there will always be a mix of help/hinderence, and we know with the self-diagnosed group that they have consistently suffered hardship, which is why it was decided their group would be led by trauma councilors. but that is the extent of that consistency.

sorry to ramble.

One big difference between HFA and Asperger's is that HFA is more likely to be diagnosed in childhood, because of the speech delay. Of course the actual speech delay resolves itself, and in adulthood you can't tell who's from which group; but growing up with a diagnosis most likely makes people different from what they'd be if they'd grown up without it.

?? I don't think that's true. The autism web ring is filled with aspies fighting for autistic rights, not just AS rights.

Also, ASAN (Austistic Self Advocacy Network) is run by Ari Ne'eman, dx'ed AS, and on the front page they have articles against The Judge Rotenborg Center, Autism Speaks, and lots of other non-AS specific issues.

AUTCOM, ANI... I actually can't think of any Asperger's-only advocacy groups.

Oh, I didn't mean your absolutes, you made it perfectly clear that you based you thoughts on the observation you made with these groups. I'm sorry if you thought I had a go at you.
I was thinking in the line of the absolutes a psychiatrist or similar might use. Because Aspies present just as differently as any other group anyone can think of.

and that is why i believe aspies need their own spectrum in the DSM.